Introduction

Businesses and other institutions around the world are increasingly using the term ‘professionalism’ to describe their level of service provision. While some professions, such as medicine and engineering, have been well known and recognised through standard qualifications for many years, others – such as rural advisory services (RAS) – have only recently begun to aspire to a higher level of professionalism. The benefit of professionalised practices is evident for both practitioners and those who receive services. Many professional regulatory bodies exist that provide checks and balances on the performance standards of different sectors. While there are pockets of evidence on the professionalisation of RAS, the majority of countries are at the stage of seeking to professionalise their services, and need strengthened capacity to initiate this process.

Using the GFRAS scoping study on professionalisation of RAS (Terblanche 2017) as an entry point, (1)

this note shares concrete examples of successful cases of professionalisation of RAS, highlighting what is needed to professionalise RAS, what capacities are required at what level, and what preconditions need to be in place.

Philosophy and principles

This section considers the terminology used in the professionalisation discourse (see Box 1). Ethics is concerned with encouraging actions known to be correct by considering all relevant sides of an ethical problem, considering basic ethical values, and acting within the codes of a profession. A professional is a person expected to have a special set of skills in a given field, acquired through formal education, experiential learning, and practice, and accompanied by qualifications or accreditation of some kind. Professionalism is related to expectations or standards, behaviour, values, and image in the workplace.

Box 1: Definitions

Ethics: “A code of conduct or set of beliefs that dictate what is right, wrong, fair, and unfair.” (2)

Profession: “The occupation which one professes to be skilled in and to follow. A vocation in which professed knowledge of some branch of learning is used in its application to the affairs of others, or in the practice of an art based upon it.” (3)

Professional: “Person formally certified by a professional body or belonging to a specific profession by virtue of having completed a required course of studies and/or practice. And whose competence can usually be measured against an established set of standards.” (4)

Author information: Dr Stephanus Terblanche has worked as a Lecturer in Extension for many years, and is the consultant who carried out the professionalisation scoping study for GFRAS. He is involved in curriculum development of agricultural extension programmes, Chairperson of the Standards Generating Body for Agricultural Extension in South Africa, and member of the South African Society for Agricultural Extension. He is also Editor of the South African Journal of Agricultural Extension.

Ms Hlamalani Ngwenya is an International Development Consultant, Lecturer, and Social Entrepreneur. She has 25 years’ work experience in the food, nutrition, agriculture, and natural resources sector globally. She teaches agricultural extension-related subjects and is involved in curriculum development, skills planning, and facilitating multistakeholder engagements. Since 2015 she has been a consultant responsible for coordinating the GFRAS Consortium for Education and Training, as well as taking the lead in the New Extensionist learning development process and professionalisation of RAS.